Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda Internazionale kick off

The Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda Internazionale, which starts today, April 1, is set to run until Sunday, April 6. Today, the teams were presented in Bergamo. Among the participating squads is the Australian South Australia - AIS outfit, riding with Zakkari Dempster, William Ford, Josefski Haiden, Matthew King, Simon Klarke, Travis Meyer, Wesley Sulzberger and Johnnie Walker.

Other teams include LPR Brakes, with Danilo Di Luca and Paolo Savoldelli, Team Volksbank with Andreas Dietziker and Gerrit Glomser and Tinkoff (Daniele Contrini).

The race will start out with a flat team time trial over 18.3 kilometres in Brignano. Then it is off to the road races with stage 2, heading from Brignano to Costa Volpino. This again is a fairly flat affair, with the highest point being 300m, early in the race. The day's racing is concluded with five local laps in the finishing town.

Stage 3 is again something for the sprinters, with six flat, local laps in the middle of the race, before stage 4, from Vertova to Vertova, will offer three GPM's, all on the 632-metre high La Forcella. After the seven flat laps that kick off stage 5, there is again a battle for the mountain points, over the roughly 800-metre high Passo Cavallo and the Colle Maddalena. The final stage is also a mix of a flat first part, with four laps of around 10 kilometres, before the Colle Gallo Samuario (763m) and the Selvino (962m) mostly conclude the hilly part. After the descent form the Selvino there is another GPM in Bergamo, but it is a very short ascent and a potential breakaway will certainly not slowed down enough to get caught – if they have a sufficient lead already.

The stages: